The Keepsake
by J. Metropolis
Summary: The object that means the world to Rapunzel goes missing. The Princess is inconsolable and it's up to Eugene to find a solution.


**The Keepsake**

It was Rapunzel's most prized possession. It meant more to her than even her crown, and her crown meant an awful lot to Rapunzel considering that it had been singlehandedly responsible for bringing her and Eugene together. The keepsake that meant the world to her was now missing and the Princess was inconsolable.

Rapunzel had always been careful with her things. It was a habit left over from the days when she had very few possessions, from the days when she was scolded and told that she was too clumsy, or careless or ungrateful and that those were the reasons she was undeserving of nice things.

Eugene helped Rapunzel scour her room in search of this misplaced object. Pascal was a big help too. Pascal looked in places where no one else - not Eugene, nor Rapunzel nor the Queen nor the half dozen maids who were assisting them - could reach. The King would have helped too but he was away in a neighboring kingdom attending to matters of State.

The Queen had been on her hands and knees behind an armoire when she was called away by one of her ladies-in-waiting. The Queen left to attend a luncheon in the main garden of the palace in honor of the Corona Cymbidium Club.

After the Queen left, the maids slowly trickled out until it was only Rapunzel, Pascal and Eugene in the Princess' bedchamber. Rapunzel was supposed to attend the luncheon too but the Princess was despondent and unwilling to stop her search.

Eugene, however, was ready to give up. They had run out of new places to look three hours ago and were just retracing their search for the fourth time. The item they were looking for was clearly no longer in the Princess' bedchamber.

This is madness. Eugene thought. What was it exactly that he had spent his entire morning and the better part of his afternoon looking for? A family heirloom? _No._ A priceless piece of art? _No._ The program from Hookhand's latest piano concerto? _Not even._ It was a piece of cloth, one which could easily be repurchased or reproduced.

Eugene crawled out from under one of her love seats, dusted off his trousers and ran his hand through his hair, certain it was in disarray. He decided to approach his princess with an alternative proposition. A _genius_ idea really, he thought.

The Princess was standing inside her closet frantically looking through each of her dresses again, dresses which she had not worn in months. Rapunzel was distressed and not thinking clearly.

Eugene approached Rapunzel slowly, he did not want to startle her. He grabbed her by the shoulders and gently turned her around. He kept his hands on those shoulders as he tilted his head down so he was eye level with her.

"Look Blondie. I can fix this."

"You can?" She looked at him, still sniffling but now appearing a bit hopeful.

"Sure." He responded, breezily. "I think I remember that kid. The pudgy one, right?"

"I can track him down. _Trust me_, Blondie. I'm _very_ good at tracking people. I'll figure out where he lives and I'll get you a new one. He probably has a bunch left over from last year. If not, your birthday is only four months away. He'll have a new shipment in pretty soon. _Voila_, problem solved."

Eugene was reasonably satisfied with his solution. He gave her a little kiss on the forehead and pulled her in for a hug, "_See_. No need to get your pretty face in a - "

Eugene did not get to finish that sentence because Rapunzel started bawling, _loudly_.

A surprised Eugene immediately pulled her back from the hug so he could look at her face. He furrowed his eyebrows in confusion before giving her a sad, empathetic little smile.

"_Wha_ -, What is it? Why are you so upset?" He cupped her face with steady hands and began to gently wipe away her tears with his callous thumbs.

"_Oh_, _Eu_-gene," she managed between sobs, "I-don't-want-_another_-one." More sobs. "I-want-the-one-_you_-gave-me," she finished with a wail. The Princess was now crying so hard that she had given herself hiccups.

Eugene had completely forgotten about the object of their search until that morning when it was prominently brought to his attention in quite an unusual and entirely unexpected manner, not that Eugene was complaining.

He and the Queen had been seated at the breakfast table for 15 minutes, waiting for Rapunzel. It was uncharacteristic of Rapunzel to be late for anything. Well, not while Eugene was present in the room anyway. The Queen had sent a scullery maid to check on the Princess.

Another 15 minutes passed before Rapunzel rushed into the breakfast room. She was immediately followed by the scullery maid and one of her personal handmaids. The maids stopped at the threshold of the double doors to catch their breaths. The handmaid was still carrying a green dress and a corset in the vain hopes that the Princess would wear them.

The Queen looked up from her conversation with Eugene and her mouth fell open, mid-sentence. Eugene followed the Queen's gaze and dropped the silver grapefruit spoon he had been holding. It landed on the oak table with a loud clang but neither the Queen nor Eugene seemed to notice.

The Crown Princess of Corona was standing in front of them barefoot (which was not unusual) and in a white chemise and petticoats (which was completely shocking). She had refused to put on her corset or her dress.

If Eugene had been able look at the Princess' face he would have seen that she was visibly upset and in tears. At the moment, however, he was transfixed by her bare, alluring shoulders and the delicate, ruffled straps of her chemise which precariously clung to those shoulders. This was new, tantalizing information for Eugene.

The handmaid tried frantically to explain to the Queen that when she went into the Princess' bedchamber early that morning to help the Princess get dressed, she found the Princess in a frenzy, desperately looking for the "purple little flag." The handmaid was making wild hand gestures and kept emphasizing the flag but neither the Queen nor Eugene (who had other things on his mind) had any idea what flag the handmaid was talking about or what it had to do with the Princess' present state of undress.

For almost a year, the handmaid had helped Rapunzel get dressed in the morning and undressed at night. Naturally, the handmaid knew the importance of the purple little flag to the Princess. The Queen and Eugene (who was only in the nascent stages of planning a proposal and was certainly not yet privy to the Princess' dressing habits or undressing habits, for that matter) were in the dark. They both looked at the handmaid with blank stares.

The exasperated handmaid finally disclosed that the Princess kept a little flag on her person at all times. She kept it inside her corset and only removed it at night when she went to bed. The preceding night, the handmaid had been helping the Princess get ready for bed when the Princess was distracted by a few stray pebbles that had struck the glass door of her balcony - the handmaid looked accusingly at Eugene and Eugene looked down at his plate sheepishly. It seemed that in all the commotion the Princess had misplaced the little flag. In the morning when the Princess awoke, the little flag was gone.

The Queen and Eugene never got to finish their breakfast. The Queen finally convinced Rapunzel to put on her corset and her green dress – much to Eugene's silent protests - and everyone in the room set out to the Princess' bedchamber in search of the purple little flag. They enlisted the help of a few additional maids along the way.

Six hours later Eugene _finally_ realized the sentimental value that Rapunzel had placed on the little flag. The fact that it had taken him this long to reach an epiphany was understandable, he had been quite distracted at breakfast.

Eugene had bought the purple little flag with the bright yellow sun emblem for Rapunzel on her birthday almost a year ago. To him it had been a silly little trinket, an impulse buy of nominal monetary value that was quickly forgotten. To her, it had been the key to discovering her true identity; it had served as a map legend of sorts. It had led her home. It had also been the first thing that _he_ had ever given her and for that reason she always kept it close to her heart.

Eugene sighed. He now knew that the purple little flag was irreplaceable. But continuing to look for it here, in the Princess' bedchamber, was pointless. He grabbed her hand and said, "Come on, I think I know where it is but we've got to hurry."

It was not that Eugene was particularly interested in the mundane inner workings of a castle. It was that he was constantly looking for new places where he and his princess could rendezvous without interruptions. He had been scouting the laundry room as one such venue. It had the distinct advantage of being in use at predictable and specific times of the day. No one would be using it, say after dinner. The kitchen, for instance, always had a hodgepodge of people coming and going at all hours. The kitchen hands worked long-hour shifts and there was always the risk that the King would come down to prepare himself a late night snack. Yes, the kitchen had been a terrible idea. In the laundry room, however, one could rest assured that nobody would get the inkling to do their washings in the middle of the night.

All this to say that Eugene knew exactly where the laundry room was located and that today was in fact laundry day.

They rushed into the laundry room and both Eugene and Rapunzel breathed sighs of relief. There, sitting on top of a brown wicker basket was the purple little flag still pinned to the Princess' corset. On the way back, they stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water for his princess, who while still hiccupping, was simultaneously overjoyed and exhausted.

That afternoon, Eugene bought a small gilded frame. With Rapunzel's help, he centered the now framed purple little flag on the wall above one of her nightstands, ensuring that the Princess' most beloved possession would never be mistaken for laundry again.


End file.
